


Robots In Disguise

by Decepticonsensual



Series: The Festival of Mortilus [6]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2015-01-26
Packaged: 2018-03-09 02:48:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3233420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decepticonsensual/pseuds/Decepticonsensual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>lizwuzthere requested: "Vehicons dressing up and trick-or-treating!"  So... how exactly DO giant alien robots get to experience the fun of a Jasper, Nevada Halloween?  All it takes is a little paint, a communications officer with an odd sense of humour, and one industrious Vehicon engineer.  Rated G, no warnings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Robots In Disguise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lizwuzthere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizwuzthere/gifts).



> This is part of the Festival of Mortilus series; please see the series page for more about the Festival of Mortilus, a Cybertronian version of Halloween.

“This is  _never going to work,_ ” M-4RCU5 whispered, gliding close enough to nudge his bumper against the Vehicon driving beside him.

“This is  _absolutely_ going to work,” B3NN-13 hissed from the front of the column.  They were making their way into the city in a slow procession, two by two.  “I’ve been planning this for weeks.”

“We’re not Autobots!  We don’t know the first thing about fleshie customs!  I’m telling you, they’re going to figure out something is wrong!”

“So what if they do?” came the rasping voice of R3N33, one of the oldest Vehicons stationed on the  _Nemesis._ She was a veteran of Lord Megatron’s original century from the early days of the war.  Even in vehicle mode, the younger soldiers could feel their struts snap to attention automatically when she spoke.  “Fleshie makes a fuss, we squash ’em.  You telling me you’re afraid of tiny organics, kid?”

“Organics, no, Centurion, but I can’t imagine Lord Megatron will be too pleased if we kick off a fight with the humans for no good reason.”  In as much as it was possible for a car to shudder, that was exactly what M-4RCU5 did.

“Officer Soundwave gave me his approval for this mission,” B3NN-13 reminded him.  Actually, what Soundwave had done when she’d explained the plan had been to lean in intimidatingly close, watching her blankly, until B3NN-13 was on the verge of giving up the idea completely and begging forgiveness for having even suggested it – and then he’d turned and pulled up a mission report form, gesturing to it casually with one needlelike finger.  It was, strictly speaking, less a sign of approval and more an indication that if the Vehicons were going to do something stupid, Soundwave at least wanted first crack at any information they got out of it.  But it was enough.  “Anyway, no one is going to catch us out; we’re in disguise!”

“We’re  _always_ in disguise.”

“Yes, but now we’re in… disguiser… disguise.”  B3NN-13 harrumphed and pulled a little forward of the Vehicon next to her, ignoring the snickers from the others.  Okay, so it wasn’t the most eloquent way of putting it, but the vehicle-mode disguises were B3NN-13’s master stroke and she was proud of them.  It had taken extensive research into fleshling ritual apparel and hours upon hours in the science labs, piecing together and painting scrap metal.  Now, it was about to pay off.

As they reached downtown Jasper, they could hear a loud drumbeat, and then, trickling in around it, the sounds of other instruments:  brassy, wailing sounds that reminded a few of the older Vehicons faintly of a Kaon pit band.  It soon became clear that the source was a group of gaudily costumed humans walking slowly at the head of a column of vehicles.  And what vehicles!  Most Earth cars and trucks looked similar to their Cybertronian equivalents, the Vehicons had come to realise:  clunkier, maybe, without the same natural sleekness as a Cybertronian alt mode, but built with the same principles of friction and motion in mind.  These, however, were like lumbering miniature buildings with wheels.  Complex structures – some trailing balloons or streamers, others with small fleshies clinging to them, all painted in bright arrays of colour – crowned each vehicle.  Behind these moving buildings came a procession of average-sized cars similarly decked out.  B3NN-13 in-vented harshly.

_Jackpot._

Some of the cars were woven with glittering streamers; others had re-creations of organic animal ears or horns on their roofs, or their front bumpers repainted to look like toothy maws; and still others were repainted entirely in oranges, blacks, reds, “monster” greens, or “zombie” greys.  (B3NN-13 still wasn’t sure what a monster was, and her research into zombies had reminded her uncomfortably enough of Terrorcons that she’d stopped after a few images.)  And the Vehicons, in their cobbled-together disguises of shredded metal and stolen crepe paper and paint, matched these vehicles  _exactly._

Even R3N33 had to admit that they blended in seamlessly as the entire Vehicon column slipped into position at the end of the parade.   _::Not bad, rookie::_  she murmured over a private comm.  B3NN-13, who hadn’t been a rookie since before the victory at Simanzi, nevertheless felt her plating puff up a little with pride.

_::It’s so_ strange _::_  M-4RCU5 commed them all.   _::B3NN-13, I know you said that it was like the Festival of Mortilus, but this is just eerie.  If you squint, this could be a Mortilus parade in Iacon.  They’ve even got costumes – I mean, costumes for the fleshies, not just the cars!  Look!::_

And, indeed, there were crowds of fleshlings lining both sides of the street, and their outer plating was even stranger than usual.  Some of them were clearly made up to mimic the dead of their own species, or animals.  Others, especially the smallest ones, wore crowns that would put a Cybertronian Chief Justice to shame.  A few, to the Vehicons’ general shock, were decked out in boxy cardboard outfits covered in metallic foil, apparently in a clumsy attempt to make them look Cybertroninan.  And that was just the start.  B3NN-13 couldn’t figure out what half of the costumes were meant to represent, but, going off what she’d learned about the similarities between this “Halloween” and the Festival of Mortilus, these must be the things humans feared.  It made some sense, she supposed.  Human Terrorcons, organic predators, some… kind of authority figures, probably, and Cybertronians, whom humans must regard as frightening invaders.  Many of the costumes were extremely sparkly, true, but, then, so was Commander Starscream, and he was  _terrifying._

The parade moved on, and the Vehicons, undetected, with it.

*

The evening proved to be a fascinating one.  As they inched down the street under the admiring stares of the assembled fleshlings, the Vehicons stared in turn at the costumes, the lights, the decorated lanterns, the crowds of revellers – all the elements of the Festival of Mortilus, each one a little bit off (the lanterns were carved orange globes of organic matter, not white spheres with the name of Mortilus painted on them, for example), and yet each one so very close to their memories of Cybertron that it couldn’t possibly be a coincidence.

“I think it might be… the Unmaker,” 4LV1N whispered, the noise of the crowd and the band masking his voice.

M-4RCU5 frowned at a passing fleshling.  “Nah.  It’s got the horns, but the beard is nowhere near big enough.  Besides, it’s red all over –”

“Not the costume!  I mean the reason this all feels so familiar.”  Engine hiccupping nervously at being the sudden centre of attention, he pressed on, “Well, the Festival of Mortilus is really, really old, right?  And no one really knows how long ago Mortilus was defeated – or the Unmaker was exiled.  So… what if He actually  _remembers_ the Festival of Mortilus, somewhere deep inside His mind, even when He’s been locked away inside this planet?  And what if – okay, I know this sounds crazy, but what if all the little creatures that evolved on Him somehow picked up some of those memories?  Without realising it, but maybe all of this dressing in costumes and hanging lights and having parties in the street feels right to them because they… remember it, somehow.”  He sputtered to a halt as the others digested this.

“Yes,” B3NN-13 replied.

“Yes, you think I’m right, or…?”

“Yes, that sounds crazy.”

“Ain’t crazy,” R3N33 rumbled.  “Planets remember, gods or no gods.  Ask any miner.  Metal remembers.”  She paused.  “Guess maybe this…  _soil_ does, too.”

The parade ended with all of the cars pulled up in the parking lot outside the local high school, where the band played another set and a succession of fleshlings not in costumes made brief speeches.  The final one ended with, “Now, I know you kids are eager to get trick-or-treating, so I’ll just say:  have fun, and happy Halloween!”

“Trick-or-whating?” M-4RCU5 asked softly.

“Trick-or-treating.  It’s a seasonal protection racket; their sparklings go to each other’s homes and demand human fuel as compensation for not wrecking the place,” B3NN-13 informed him.  “I don’t know why they don’t do that at other times, since it seems to work really well.  But anyway, we  _have_ to try it.”

“You don’t think they’re gonna notice a car driving up to the front door and talkin’ to ’em?” R3N33 snorted, amused.  “Or should we go in root mode and pretend we got really big costumes?”

“Don’t worry, Centurion, I worked up a solution for this.  Just follow my lead.”

The Vehicons waited until most of the other vehicles had left the lot before slipping away, scattering over a few side streets not far from the school.  B3NN-13, R3N33, and M-4RCU5 chose the quieter end of a residential street that was thronged with fleshlings, larger ones escorting smaller ones in costume from door to door.

_::Watch this::_ B3NN-13 commed.  Her rear door opened, and a human holoform appeared beside her, as if just climbing out.  It was about three feet tall and dressed in a costume B3NN-13 had found on the human information hub.  The costume consisted of a soft one-piece armour with a tail dangling from the aft and ears that attached to the helm on a curved piece of plastic.  The overall effect was much like a turbofox, although reddish-orange instead of silver.

Though she would never admit it, even on pain of death, B3NN-13 thought it was cute.

Carefully, paying painstaking attention to the holoform’s motion cycle – small humans didn’t quite move like miniature adults, she’d noticed – she walked it up to the door of the nearest house and directed it to ring the bell. 

_::Hey, kid::_ R3N33 pinged her.   _::You never told me why you’re out here tonight.  I mean, me and the rest are just curious, beats another night of polishing and weapons checks, but you – you really put work into this.  How come?::_

B3NN-13 thought about that for a moment.   _::You know how it was, down in the mines, before Lord Megatron – before we had names::_ she eventually replied.   _::Not like holidays were much of a thing, right?  Neoformia wasn’t for the likes of us.  Even the Festival of Lost Light – we didn’t_ commemorate  _people when they were gone.  But Mortilus…::_ She focused on the back of her holoform, the ridiculous little tail, the eager posture.   _::I don’t know about your division, but mine always celebrated, just like we do on the_ Nemesis  _now.  It was important.  It was our way of saying, Frag you, world, another year gone and I’m still here.::_

_::Pit yeah.  Decepticons forever::_ R3N33 hummed in agreement.  _::But that’s why_ we  _celebrate it.  Why do you care what the fleshlings do?::_

_Because they’re small and they die easily and everything’s against them, but they’re still here,_ B3NN-13 thought, but didn’t dare say.  She was saved by the door opening.  The holoform opened its brightly coloured sack and looked up appealingly.

However, the fleshling in the doorway didn’t dispense the promised fuel.  Instead, its face crinkled in worry.  “Are you out here all alone, honey?”

_::Frag!::_ B3NN-13 rolled down her window, raised her voice, and called out, “Hurry up, sweetspark!  Your – um – your daddy is waiting for you!”  That was one of the terms fleshlings used for parents, wasn’t it?  It seemed to satisfy the fleshling, at least, who dropped an object into the sack and smiled as it shut the door.

B3NN-13 felt a strange surge of triumph as the holoform climbed back inside her and promptly dissolved, leaving only the nugget of human fuel.

_::I think that’s enough human celebration for tonight::_ she commed the others.   _::Let’s go home.::_

*

The next morning, Soundwave found a datapad with a detailed report of all of the Vehicons’ observations at his workstation when he arrived.

Lying on top of it was a tiny, alien object labelled, in human script, “Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup”.

Soundwave scanned it, then delicately extended one finger to poke at it, before finally scooping it up and bringing it to visor level.  Well.  Unless this Reese turned up and was prepared to fight for it, it was Soundwave’s Peanut Butter Cup now.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll admit to a spot of hypocrisy: I've spent half my time in this fandom complaining that the franchise keep naming every series Robots In Disguise (the English dub of Car Robots; the comic series; and now the new cartoon)... and then I go and do this. Er... if you can't beat 'em, join 'em?


End file.
